The Academy: to Oceantree.

"Come out of the dark where you're safe."
“It beckons to us all, at one time or another.” she says quietly, coming round the corner of a natural wall of bracken that blossoms with flower. Raven takes in the tallness and leanness of the mare - another paint, like another student of hers, like herself - Raven is painted too. She smiles; having once felt the allure of this place too and feels it still, beckoned forth from her own thoughts and journeys to help others embark upon their paths to becoming themselves and more than that.

“Do you know why you are here?” Most do, some do not and so, she asks. Her eyes - like berries, dark and rich, look to the mare then looks out upon the land that rises and falls in steep hills and sky-reaching trees and ancient huts of stone and timber that house dust and mice now but once housed humans and other things, she supposes. Their mark is still here, in handprint upon stone, in abutments of roof and wall, and memories that the land holds. Gently, she noses the neck of the mare to steady any nerves and quell the uprisings of strangeness and fear that might dwell in the blood and the flesh - this place was like that, full of strange dirt and strange air.

Earth II; Ap